Terrorist Attack In Jerusalem

Sorry for the long time between posts. I’ll be honest, its because nothing really noteworthy has happened, until now. As I’m sure you’ve all been aware now, there has been another terrorist attack in Israel, specifically Jerusalem. As you can see from this awesome clip below, the terrorist gets absolutely destroyed, enjoy.

Unfortunately, the terrorist managed to kill three people and wounded 45 people.

The driver rammed at least two buses, overturning one, and crushed several cars in a five-minute spree just after midday (7pm AEST) in west Jerusalem.

However this brings up some important issues; how was this guy allled to get into Israel? Quite easily actually.

He was identified as an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, whoheld an Israeli identification card, with full access to all parts of the country.

As well as this the guy was known to the police for raping a former girlfriend, he served two years. Hopefully, next time Israel will do a better job in not letting these people get citizenship. I really think that a citizenship test should be given to every Israeli citizen. Of course this begs another questions, why are we issueing Israeli ID cards to a possible fith element anyway?

The attack came at a highly sensitive time in intra-Palestinian politics, with Hamas struggling to hold together the truce with Israel, which has seen limited supplies allowed into the Gaza Strip in return for a stop to rocket fire on Israeli settlements.

Egypt immediately locked the Rafah crossing into the Strip, which had been due to open around the time of the attack. Hundreds of Palestinians on either side rioted in response.

Israeli security forces were last night interrogating the terrorist’s family, amid calls by enraged members of parliament for them to be deported en masse to Gaza.

More on this event here.

Gaza Truce Is At ‘Risk’

This is was news yesterday but I thought I may as well add my 2 cents in just for fun. Yes, we nearly had a record. The truce only lasted 6, repeat 6 days! Guess who violated it? Was there even a hesitation when you said Hamas? Probably not. However that is strictly not correct, it came from Islamic Jihad which although:

did not agree to the truce but had vowed not to violate it.

However, it may as well be the same thing in my opinion. Now is the world starting to wake up about these people? They don’t keep their word, we knew that already. Hamas is the government in charge of the Gaza Strip, yet they can not even keep their allied terrorists (or as MSM says ‘militants’) under control. Never mind that Israel took down a terrorist (he was a senior in Islamic Jihad person which was the reason for the attack) in the West Bank, where there is no truce. Never mind Israel is completely in its right to target terrorists, Hamas replied that:

Hamas blamed Israel for yesterday’s violence, saying it had “provoked” Palestinian armed factions with the killing of the two men in Nablus.

Still what do you expect. I could now go into a rant about Olmert trying to save his political skin by destroying Israel’s chance to destroy Hamas, but if you’ve read the blog you already know my views on this.

On a lighter note, I am going to be seeing You Don’t Mess With the Zohan on Sunday. Review will follow. Oh and more good news, regular blogging will follow from this Friday as I will be on a break, so expect posts at least once every second day.

The ‘Truce’ With Hamas

I must be crazy. That’s the only reason why I would be posting during an exam period about to take an exam that I will most likely only scrape a bare pass! However, when I see the amount of stupidity in the world I can’t help myself. Why, oh why, does Olmert think it will be actually beneficial to have a temporary peace (Tahdiya) with Hamas? It doesn’t make sense, they aren’t interested in permanent negotiations. Here’s a few reasons why from Jonathan Dahoah Halevi.

• Hamas regards the temporary cease-fire as a tahdiya and not a hudna. A tahdiya - “a period of calm” - is used by Hamas to describe a simple cease-fire. A hudna implies recognition of the other party’s actual existence, without acknowledging its legitimacy.
• In an interview with Al-Jazeera (April 26, 2008), Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal clarified that for Hamas, a tahdiya is “a tactic in conflict management.” He added that it “is not unusual for the resistance…to escalate sometimes and to retreat a bit sometimes as the tide does….The tahdiya creates a formulation that will force Israel…to remove the siege…and if it happens it will be a remarkable achievement.”
• Official sources in Israel have explained that Hamas’ interest in a lull in the fighting is a result of its “distress.” But the organization did not experience “distress.” Hamas has introduced and maintained law and order in Gaza, strengthened its overall control, suppressed opposition, and achieved broad popular support for its policies.
• One diplomatic consequence of the tahdiya will be increasing pressure on Israel to accept a future reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. That could lead to increasing demands on Israel to negotiate a permanent status arrangement with a joint Hamas-Fatah government, while Hamas remains committed to its political program of the elimination of Israel.
• The cease-fire also grants Hamas a golden opportunity to expand its military build-up for the next round of terror and violence. Emulating Hizbullah’s strategy, Hamas is striving to acquire longer-range and more destructive missiles to be used for deterrence and as a sword on Israel’s neck.

To summarise, for some reason, Israel believe that by going along with this ‘ceasefire’, which by the way will not last the week (if it does I will be genuinely surprised), in order to get their captured troops back through further negotiations. What they don’t understand is this will aid Hamas, and as you can see above, was probably what they were hoping for. Now all Hamas has to do is sit tight and rearm baby! Instead of this piss-poor excuse for a truce, Israel should be in the Gaza Strip right now engaging Hamas, not in dialogue, but the traditional kind of engagement, the one that actually works with these people.

Daily Kos Hits Earth’s Core, Digs

Sorry guys for the large break. I’ve had a lot of work to get through, but know the worst is over, yay! Israel has made it to her 60th birthday which is something to celebrate, even if there those who can’t appreciate it, here and here, hat tip to LGF.

My favourite of these links is the Daily Kos one, just read this and laugh.

It thus emerged as a major power and a formidable challenger of existing Arabic powers that will decide the fate of the world, coordinated assassination of President Kennedy which unnaturally led to the hasty re-evaluation of American foreign policy for adjustion that align with the interests of Israeli state for total compatibility in irreversibly entangled alliance.

A Time To Mourn And A Time To Remember

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now of the cyclone in Burma which devastated the country. What I find so appalling is that the ruling military Junta is not allowing any foreign aid into the country! The obvious reason of course is they don’t want the UN to come in with aid and then see the human rights violations that have been committed. I’ve just recently found out that approximately 80,000 people have been killed by this cyclone.

“The storm came into our village, and a giant wave washed in, dragging everything into the sea,” said one man in his 20s, who had trekked in from Kanyinkone village. “Houses collapsed, buildings collapsed, and people were swept away. I only survived by hanging on to a big tree. “Only about 20 per cent of the people survived in our village. I am the only one who survived in my family. My wife and my two children died in the storm.”

The Labutta district was hard hit when Nargis and its huge storm surge slammed ashore on Saturday, devastating the low-lying Irrawaddy delta. “The waves were so strong, they ripped off all my clothes. I was left naked hanging in a tree,” said one teenage survivor. Based on stories from people emerging from the countryside, only about 20 per cent of people in the area survived, Labutta residents said.

Absolutely disgusting. As for remembering, its Israel’s birthday in a few days, yay! Israel has been celebrating its dependence in a very IDF way, with Paratroopers from around the world jumping in Israel. Also, here is a very interesting and special story from a man who served in the 2nd Lebanon War. Some of the things he and his men had to cope with are just incredible. Its interesting because the person being interviewed, Dr. Yehuda David, believes that Israel could have won the war if given 3 more days.

Happy Pesach and Chag Sameach!

Just wishing everybody a happy Pesach and Chag Sameach! I am definitely looking forward to this Pesach as my mother will be making her trademark (and best) chocolate Matza’s as well as this, the Seder which I will be going to will have around 40 people! Before I leave, here’s the link for Michael Totten’s new post about the tribes in Iraq and how the Marines are trying to use them to contain a sustainable democracy.

Captain Quintin Jones and Mayor Abu Abdullah

Also I leave you with another link to an article written by Margot Dudkevitch from Infolive.tv about the amount of weapons that are being smuggled into the Gaza Strip through the most interesting ways.

In recent months,  Iran has increased its efforts to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip via the sea and also tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, sending the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups there not only weapons and rifles but advanced Iranian made rockets and mortar shells.

…

A report in the Jerusalem Post says that many of the weapons are too big to smuggle through the tunnels built underneath the Philadelphi Corridor linking Egypt and the Gaza Strip, and therefore resort to dropping them off the waters in Gaza in waterproof sealed tubes.

Is Gaza Israel’s New Lebanon?

No. I’m not talking about the current situation between Lebanon and Israel. I am talking about Lebanon pre-2000. When Hezbollah was easily Israel’s most dangerous foe at the time, as explored in the novel, Beaufort by Ron Leshem.

Infolive.tv has given a wonderful overview of the situation which you can view here.

Despite the fact that senior government officials have stated a number of times that it is only a matter of time before a large scale military operation will be launched in the Gaza Strip, Israel appears reluctant and instead opts to launch frequent limited incursions on the ground and rely on air force strikes, rather then a major ground offensive.

I’m pretty sure the reason why this is so is Shalit. The Knesset does’t want to endanger his life and lose whatever credibility it has left. However, leaving the problem to fester as Olmert is just plain wrong, the reasons of which I explored in this post.

In conversations with Israeli defense officials in recent months, there were those who supported continuing with the current IDF strategy, relying on small but frequent ground incursions and air strikes to do the job and eventually reap results. There were other officials who declared that after almost eight years of intifada, constant rocket attacks on Israeli communities in the South, it was time to act, and harshly. Time to make the terrorists pay. The method ? To issue warnings to residents in Gaza informing them that they have until the following day to leave their homes., and then bomb the neighborhoods and flatten them. Only then the officials said, will the Palestinians realize that Israel means business and if the terror continues there will be heavy and harsh price to pay.

I’ve always believed in destroying every part of Hamas. There can be simply no negotiation with them. All they seem to understand is force. Their version of a cease-fire with Israel is that of a Hudna, or a temporary cease-fire in which they can rearm and regroup. Right now, Hamas doesn’t give a damn about what might happen if they capture an Israeli solider because there will be no real consequence. Sure they may lose a few men, but who cares when they can ransom off their hostages for dozens of Palestinian prisoners in Isreal. This is just one of the reasons why I believe that Israel needs to act now in order to deter any future attacks.

As the violence in the South threatens to mar the Pessah holiday once again, perhaps Israel’s government echelon owes it to its citizens to take more decisive and determined action, and take the necssary steps once and for all, to protect its citizens and halt the terror.

So very true.

A Lecture With Ambassador Izzat Abdulhadi

Today I attended a lecture at Sydney University by Ambassador Izzat Abdulhadi who is the head of the general delegation of Palestinians to Australia. All that basically means is that he is the representative of Abu Mazen to Australia (specifically Australasia).

He presented a brief summary of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians and talked about ways in which peace could come about. Before I go into detail about what he discussed and proposed, I want to say that that he presented the Palestinian cause quite well even though he made a few key mistakes in his facts which I will go through.

1. He believes that the Palestinians are the indigenous people to that area.

The sources that I will be using will be primary (probably all) from The Jewish Virtual Library (JVL). This source references all of its own sources which you can check yourself if you doubt what has been written. Interestingly, I can answer this myself. During a discussion in one of my lecture (Jewish Thought, Civilisation and Culture) we discussed the Palestinian claim to the land now known as Israel. We found that they mostly originated from the Philistines, a group of pagans that almost exclusively lived in an area now known as the Gaza Strip. There is no record of them living in now what is known as Modern Israel. JVL also has information on this subject.

Palestinian claims to be related to the Canaanites are a recent phenomenon and contrary to historical evidence. The Canaanites disappeared from the face of the earth three millennia ago, and no one knows if any of their descendants survived or, if they did, who they would be.

Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, said the Palestinians’ ancestors had only been in the area for 1,000 years.⁹ Even the Palestinians themselves have acknowledged their association with the region came long after the Jews. In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, for example, they claimed a connection to Palestine of more than 1,000 years, dating back no further than the conquest of Muhammad’s followers in the 7th century.¹⁰ And that claim is also dubious. Over the last 2,000 years, there have been massive invasions that killed off most of the local people (e.g., the Crusades), migrations, the plague, and other manmade or natural disasters. The entire local population was replaced many times over. During the British mandate alone, more than 100,000 Arabs emigrated from neighboring countries and are today considered Palestinians.

By contrast, no serious historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, or the modern Jewish people’s relation to the ancient Hebrews.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#b1

2. He believes that Israel was a colonial project created in order to serve the super powers at the time, namely the UK and US.

Once again this is false as many of the resources that should have been available to help Jews resettle in Palestine/Israel were actually closed to them. Indeed, many Jews hated the imperialistic presence of the British and actually fought and died trying to drive them out of Palestine.

Moreover, as British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.”²⁹

Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote:

The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement….We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home….We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other (emphasis added).³⁰

“Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land — to ’serve’ it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them: we want to serve with them…..” — Martin Buber31

In the 1940s, the Jewish underground movements waged an anti-colonial war against the British. The Arabs, meanwhile, were concerned primarily with fighting the Jews rather than expelling the British imperialists.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#j

3. He believes that the 2nd Intifada was caused by Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount.

This, frankly, is just crap. Regardless of whether it caused it or not (and it didn’t), an Israeli, Jewish Prime Minister should be able to visit the most holy site in Judaism without fear of being attacked. In fact it was Arafat’s intention all along for the violence to break out. The JVL explains the incident quite thoroughly; once again all these sources are listed at the bottom of the website for you to browse.

Imad Faluji, the Palestinian Authority Communications Minister, admitted months after Sharon’s visit that the violence had been planned in July, far in advance of Sharon’s “provocation.” “It [the uprising] had been planned since Chairman Arafat’s return from Camp David, when he turned the tables on the former U.S. president and rejected the American conditions.”¹⁸

“The Sharon visit did not cause the ‘Al-Aksa Intifada.’” — Conclusion of the Mitchell Report, (May 4, 2001)19

The violence started before Sharon’s September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount. The day before, for example, an Israeli soldier was killed at the Netzarim Junction. The next day in the West Bank city of Kalkilya, a Palestinian police officer working with Israeli police on a joint patrol opened fire and killed his Israeli counterpart.

Official Palestinian Authority media exhorted the Palestinians to violence. On September 29, the Voice of Palestine, the PA’s official radio station sent out calls “to all Palestinians to come and defend the al-Aksa mosque.” The PA closed its schools and bused Palestinian students to the Temple Mount to participate in the organised riots.

Just prior to Rosh Hashanah (September 30), the Jewish New Year, when hundreds of Israelis were worshipping at the Western Wall, thousands of Arabs began throwing bricks and rocks at Israeli police and Jewish worshippers. Rioting then spread to towns and villages throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami permitted Sharon to go to the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest place – only after calling Palestinian security chief Jabril Rajoub and receiving his assurance that if Sharon did not enter the mosques, no problems would arise. The need to protect Sharon arose when Rajoub later said that the Palestinian police would do nothing to prevent violence during the visit.

Sharon did not attempt to enter any mosques and his 34 minute visit to the Temple Mount was conducted during normal hours when the area is open to tourists. Palestinian youths — eventually numbering around 1,500 — shouted slogans in an attempt to inflame the situation. Some 1,500 Israeli police were present at the scene to forestall violence.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf19.html#a1

4. He believes that the settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem are a barrier to the peace process.

This line has been used by many an opponent to Israel, and once again is just not true. Just off the cuff I can rebuff that argument. Why, if the settlements were a barrier to peace, was there no peace before there were settlements? The settlement of the West Bank only happened AFTER the 6 day war. Why did the Arabs launch a war against Israel (Egypt blockading the straits of Tiran was an act of war) before there were settlements? The answer of course was that the settlements were never a barrier to the peace process.

Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace.

• From 1949-67, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel.
• From 1967-77, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements in the territories, yet the Arabs were unwilling to negotiate peace with Israel.
• In 1977, months after a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power, Egyptian President Sadat went to Jerusalem and later signed a peace treaty with Israel. Incidentally, Israeli settlements existed in the Sinai and those were removed as part of the agreement with Egypt.
• One year later, Israel froze settlement building for three months, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process. But none would.
• In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel and settlements were not an issue. If anything, the number of Jews living in the territories was growing.
• Between June 1992 and June 1996, under Labor-led governments, the Jewish population in the territories grew by approximately 50 percent. This rapid growth did not prevent the Palestinians from signing the Oslo accords in September 1993 or the Oslo 2 agreement in September 1995.
• In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle dozens of settlement, but the Palestinians still would not agree to end the conflict.

Settlement activity may be a stimulus to peace because it forced the Palestinians and other Arabs to reconsider the view that time is on their side. References are frequently made in Arabic writings to how long it took to expel the Crusaders and how it might take a similar length of time to do the same to the Zionists. The growth in the Jewish population in the territories forced the Arabs to question this tenet. “The Palestinians now realize,” said Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij, “that time is now on the side of Israel, which can build settlements and create facts, and that the only way out of this dilemma is face-to-face negotiations.”³

…

The disposition of settlements is a matter for the final status negotiations. The question of where the final border will be between Israel and a Palestinian entity will likely be influenced by the distribution of these Jewish towns. Israel wants to incorporate as many settlers as possible within its borders while the Palestinians want to expel all Jews from the territory they control.

If Israel withdraws toward the 1967 border unilaterally, or as part of a political settlement, many settlers will face one or more options: remain in the territories, expulsion from their homes, or voluntary resettlement in Israel. The impediment to peace is not the existence of those settlements, it is the Palestinians’ unwillingness to accept a state next to Israel instead of one replacing Israel.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf22a.html#b

Those were the main points that were discussed. Ambassador Abdulhadi did go into detail about the refugee issue saying that at the very least there needed to be some compensation (which I agreed with) and at most a a symbolic resettlement of maybe 100K Palestinians into Israel which I reject. At the end the Ambassador took questions from the audience, many of them were quite good, my question (which I didn’t get around to asking was this:

“You talked about Israel taking down the Wall and checkpoints in the West Bank yet these security measures have stopped at least 80% of terrorist attack into Israel. Why should Israel take down these measures if it is going to be attacked by the terrorists?”

Interestingly enough I actually managed to talk to him for about 15 minutes by myself and raised that point and his response was that if Israel did take down these measure and withdrew to the ‘67 borders then negotiations for a viable Palestinian state and peace would be able to proceed. I rejected that saying that we had already offered a similar deal in 2000 at Camp David and we were turned down without a counter offer by Arafat. His response was that Arafat was weak and couldn’t take this offer because he was facing too much opposition from within.

Double Post: New IDF Technology and US Rewarding Arab Terrorism

Sorry everyone about the lack of posts; I’ve been really busy. I want to let you know, and this is in all seriousnous that because of the lack of time that I have, expect these sorts of gaps between posts (plus nothing much has really been happening politically). Two things, first, a really cool new device from the IDF.

A new IDF automatic fire system was installed Monday in the Netiv Ha’asara neighborhood which will enable the army to fire at Palestinian gunmen near border fence without the need to deploy manpower.

The system, which was installed in a number of locations in the Gaza periphery, can be activated by soldiers located at an observation post outside the Gaza Strip.

I am hoping that it looks something like the automatic machine guns guarding the doors to the main command area in the movie Aliens, that would be awesome.

The second thing is about the blunders that the U.S. government have been making in the Israel/Arab conflict. I am talking about the aide given to the ‘moderate’ Fatah leader, Abu Mazen. Hat tip to FrontPage.

For the first time, the Bush Administration plans to give $150 million in cash directly to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Treasury, as part of a $496.5 million “aid” package, including $410 million for development programs. This added to the $86.5 million for CIA “security training”, which Congress authorized in April 2007.

What the..? Um, lets go back a bit in time, this is the same organisation a few years ago under the leadership of Arafat which either put that aide money into their (the leaders of that organisation) own personal bank accounts or used it to help fund the 2nd Intifada.

The CIA has apparently assumed the Palestinian terrorist-training role previously held by the former Soviet Union. Since 1994, the CIA armed and trained thousands of Palestinian “security forces”, who subsequently joined every Palestinian terrorist organization.

CIA Palestinian training success is best described by a member of the PA’s Chairman own security unit – Force 17, officer Abu Yusef: “The operations of the Palestinian resistance would [not] have been so successful and “would not have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000, and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without [American military] trainings,” he boasted in August 2007.

Which now begs the question, exactly why in the first place, are we even trying to negotiate peace with these thugs, let alone give them lots of money???

Since the Oslo Accords, the PA received some $14 billion to $20 billion in international aid, according to a 2007 Funding for Peace Coalition (FPC) report to the British Parliament. [emphasis added] Each Palestinian received $4,000 to $8,000 per year. In comparison, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), provided $1 billion in humanitarian aid for 2.5 million Darfur refugees from 2003 to 2006 – only $100 per person annually. Moreover, of the $7 billion pledged international aid, only $5 billion were spent to assist more than 5 million Tsunami victims in more than 15 countries on two continents.

The PA received “the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere”, [emphasis added] according to former World Bank country director for Gaza and the West Bank, Nigel Roberts.

People continue to talk about negotiating peace with Abbas. Bush, Rice and Olmert are forever telling us that Fatah is the moderate party here and that we should keep trying. To that, I say bullshit.

Like Muslim Brotherhood, Marxist–trained Jihadist Arafat, neither does Abbas “recognize that confronting terror is essential to achieving a state where his people can live in dignity and at peace with Israel,” as President Bush declared.

Abbas remains committed to the organization’s raison d’etre – destroying Israel and expelling the Jewish people from the region. Despite public Fatah-Hamas leadership disagreements, branding one another “murderers and thieves”, Abbas arranged on Jan. 30 to give Hamas $3.1 billion of $7.7 billion that international donor community pledged last December in Paris.

Look at that, even though there was a civil war, they still support and give aide to each other. Its just another logical reason why negotiation at the moment is useless and downright stupid.

Abbas’ support for Hamas is not new. In Feb. 2007, He announced, “We must unite the Hamas and Fatah blood in the struggle against Israel as we did at the beginning of the intifada.” He stated this en route to Mecca to meet with the Saudi King, and Hamas terror chiefs Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. The Saudis pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in “humanitarian aid” – which, like previous pledges, they failed to deliver.

Why I Won’t Be Celebrating 60 Years Of Israel: Rebuttal

For those who have not heard of Antony Loewenstein I suggest you Google his name now. To put it bluntly every single anti-Zionist will love this guy while everyone who stands for truth will despise him. He’s just written a most ridiculous article for the ABC, read it here. Now enjoy me showing just how false Loewenstein is.

Like Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent apology to the
Stolen Generations, the local Jewish community celebrated the gesture
of reconciliation to the indigenous population, but as I wrote in
Haaretz remained unwilling to extend this sentiment to the
Palestinians.

Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because it is rightfully our land even though we were quite prepared to submit to the UN Resolution to divide it with the Palestinians.

The fact that Israel’s continued colonisation of the occupied territories has made a two-state solution almost impossible is unmentionable. The motion received bipartisan support.

Loewenstein talks of the settlements being a barrier to peace in the region. Let me demonstrate how that is false.

• From 1949-67, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel.

• From 1967-77, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements in the territories, yet the Arabs were unwilling to negotiate peace with Israel.
• In 1977, months after a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power, Egyptian President Sadat went to Jerusalem and later signed a peace treaty with Israel. Incidentally, Israeli settlements existed in the Sinai and those were removed as part of the agreement with Egypt.
• One year later, Israel froze settlement building for three months, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process. But none would.
• In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel and settlements were not an issue. If anything, the number of Jews living in the territories was growing.
• Between June 1992 and June 1996, under Labor-led governments, the Jewish population in the territories grew by approximately 50 percent. This rapid growth did not prevent the Palestinians from signing the Oslo accords in September 1993 or the Oslo 2 agreement in September 1995.
• In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle dozens of settlement, but the Palestinians still would not agree to end the conflict.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf22a.html#b

However, Labor backbenchers were unhappy about the motion, with Julia
Irwin telling ABC radio that she found “it hard to congratulate a
country which carries out human rights abuses each day, and shows
blatant disregard for the United Nations.”

That is just blatantly false.

Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights; in fact, it is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. Arabs currently hold 8 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Israeli Arabs have also held various government posts, including one who served as Israel’s ambassador to Finland and the current deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. Oscar Abu Razaq was appointed Director General of the Ministry of Interior, the first Arab citizen to become chief executive of a key government ministry. Ariel Sharon’s original cabinet included the first Arab minister, Salah Tarif, a Druze who served as a minister without portfolio. An Arab is also a Supreme Court justice. Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel. More than 300,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. At the time of Israel’s founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today, there are hundreds of Arab schools. In 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court also ruled that the government cannot allocate land based on religion or ethnicity, and may not prevent Arab citizens from living wherever they choose.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf18.html#a

Though IDF actions have caused hardship for the Palestinian population, the IDF has continued to ensure that humanitarian assistance is provided to Palestinians in need. For example, during just one 48-hour period (January 5-6, 2003), the IDF:

• Coordinated the movement of Palestinians seeking medical care, assisting 40 to go to hospitals, including four patients from Gaza who were transferred to Israel for medical treatment.
• Coordinated the movement of 284 Palestinians in the West Bank who were transferred by ambulance.
• Coordinated the passage of building materials for the construction of a hospital in Kalkilya.
• Coordinated the passage of humanitarian goods to Bethlehem.
• Coordinated entry of ration cards sent by an international aid organization to the residents of Azoun.
• Enabled the distribution of ration cards by the Red Cross in Salfit.
• Coordinated the passage of agricultural produce and food between Muassi and Khan Yunis.
• Coordinated the passage of an UNRWA team in Gaza to aid in the disposal of rubbish.
• Arranged entry into Kalkilya for an Israeli Arab family from East Jerusalem to attend their son’s wedding.

Even at the height of military action, such as the operation to clean out the terrorist nest in the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces have gone out of their way to assist Palestinian non-combatants. In the case of the Jenin operation, for example, the hospital there was kept running with a generator delivered under fire by an Israeli officer. The best way to improve the situation for the Palestinians in the territories is for the Palestinian Authority to take the steps laid out by the Bush Administration — end the violence, reform its institutions, and elect new leaders — so that peace talks may resume and a settlement can be negotiated.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf18.html#l

Now are you starting to see why I abhor these people?

I joined the petition protesting the motion because it negates the
Palestinian narrative and celebrates, even white-washes, the ethnic
cleansing that took place in 1948. …

Huh? What is he on about?

The Palestinians knew, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, the Jews were not trying to annihilate them; otherwise, they would not have been allowed to evacuate Tiberias, Haifa or any of the other towns captured by the Jews. Moreover, the Palestinians could find sanctuary in nearby states. The Jews, however, had no place to run had they wanted to. They were willing to fight to the death for their country. It came to that for many, because the Arabs were interested in annihilating the Jews, as Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha made clear in an interview with the BBC on the eve of the war (May 15, 1948): “The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

I am sure that he is thinking of Deir Yassin well read this source and decide for yourself.

Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf14.html#f

A new book by Jonathan Cook, a former Guardian journalist now based in
Nazareth, reveals the real agenda of the Jewish state and its
Washington masters. Israel and the Clash of Civilizations methodically
argues that regional chaos actually helps, not hinders, their imperial
plans. “The actual goal of the Israeli strategy,” Cook writes, is to
convince Western policy makers that “a series of civil wars and the
partition of Arab states” is beneficial to their interests. He goes
on:

Imperial plans? Why would Israel give back the Sinai, a whole heap of Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and be prepared to evacuate settlements in the West Bank if they were imperialist. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn’t ‘imperialist’ imply the invasion of other countries in order to control them… Hasn’t Israel been doing the opposite of that in the above examples?

By tying the fates of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian
territories to the US occupation of Iraq, by miring the American
forces in the same, constant human rights abuses that Israeli forces
committed daily in the West Bank and Gaza, the two projects stood or
fell together. The futures of the Israeli and US occupations became
inextricably entwined. … Zionists in Australia refuse to acknowledge a recent poll in Israel
that found a majority of citizens want to engage with Hamas. They
ignore the on-the-ground reality that leaves a two-state solution dead
in its tracks. The alternative is a truly democratic state, neither
Jewish nor Muslim.

Ignoring the first part because that was addressed above. Is Loewenstein supporting a 1 state solution? Hasn’t that already been discredited because it would involve Israel committing demographic suicide? A majority of Arabs in this ‘1 state’ would turn it into an Islamic Arab state that may as well be renamed Palestine. Tell me, was that the goal of Zionism to live in an Arab Islamic state as a minority? Hell no!